


Finding Home

by Wuzzler



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adventure, Fluff, Friendship, Incomplete
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-17 22:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wuzzler/pseuds/Wuzzler
Summary: After losing a terrible battle, Rocket finds himself alone in a strange, but oddly familiar place.  He doesn't know where his friends are, but he intends to find out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Currently unfinished, might be abandoned but I haven't decided yet.

            “Groooooot!” Rocket screamed.  The sentient plant’s tendrils were the only thing keeping him from being sucked into the gravity well at his back.  Groot was also holding onto everyone else, each one being pulled into their own swirling vortex.  There was even one for Groot, but he had dug into the rock, literally rooting himself in place.

            “Groot!  You’re being pulled apart!” Rocket screamed at the big idiot who was once again sacrificing himself to protect everyone, with no guarantee that he could come back again.

            “I!  AM!  GROOT!” he thundered, refusing to let go of anyone, not even Nebula who hung unconscious in his grasp to Rocket’s ten o’clock.

            Rocket was helpless.  The vortex had a hold of him on one side, his tail and legs streaming out behind him, just shy of its shimmering surface.  Groot had a hold of his other end, wood and leaves wrapped tight around his shoulders.  Rocket wouldn’t give up, he had dug his claws into Groot’s solid skin and tried to pull himself forward, but it was no good.  His aero rig hadn’t had any effect against the pull, and it was out of fuel now.  All his explosives had been used up, and his gun still lay in a smashed ruin where it had been ripped from his grasp earlier.  His bag was empty.  Rocket had nothing left but his own strength, and that was rapidly flagging.

            Gamora shrieked.  The part of Groot that had been holding onto Drax near her had snapped under the pressure.  The fierce warrior was gone in an instant, vanishing into the gravity well along with a rain of splinters.  There was no way to know if he was alive or dead.

            “Groot.”  Rocket looked to his friend, his eyes damp.  He was afraid.  Afraid for himself and all the others.  Afraid for his family.

            “I am Groot.”

            “I know,” Rocket nodded, watching as Groot’s limbs began to crack and weaken.  “I know.”

            Quill was the next to go, up above everyone.  Rocket had no time to take it in, for Groot’s hold on him snapped like thunder a second later.  He barely had time to take a breath before being sucked into the gravity well, some of Groot’s broken tendrils trailing after him.

            It was cold, so very cold, but this and everything else was rapidly swallowed by an all consuming darkness.  After that came nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Sound returned first.  A rustling of wind through trees, the tentative twitter of a recently startled creature, and at a distance, a flowing liquid.  As Rocket breathed in, unsure he was even still living, his nose was flooded with the scents of an occupied planet.  It was a relief to know he was somewhere that supported his lungs, but there was something curious about the scents that rode on the air.  Something familiar.

            Rocket took a deep breath, his ribs aching with the effort.  Conflicting emotions hit all at once: a sense of home, but also a gut wrenching terror.  Opening his eyes, Rocket pushed himself upright, his whole body trembling with weakness.

            Trees, moss, rocks, dirt.  Rocket was in a forest, a green one.  The plant life was nothing like what grew on the planet he had been on, which meant he was no longer there.  Lost on an unknown planet.  Great.

            Nearby, the creature twittered again.  Rocket looked all around to find it.  It proved to be only a small bird, and it was soon joined by the voices of a few others.  Rocket figured his appearance had frightened the local wildlife, but they were already deciding that things were fine, and were returning to normal.  But Rocket couldn’t settle.  That awful feeling of something well known mixing with some nameless dread continued to linger.  Like a memory he couldn’t quite grasp.

            Searching his immediate surroundings, Rocket found himself on a large moss, covered rock that created a clearing within a forest of trees, and low, prickly looking shrubs.  The trees he could see were at least three different kinds, so this planet was certainly one of variety.  Next, he took stock of his body.  He couldn’t locate any actual injuries beyond a few bruises, but every muscle was sore and his head throbbed in time with his rapid heart beat.  Besides the clothes on his back, all he had were the dead aero rig and a couple of Groot’s tendrils that were still wrapped about his shoulders.  Untangling himself from them, Rocket was heart broken to find no pieces that could be planted.

            Groot, Gamora, Quill, Drax, and even Nebula.  Where were they?  How long had Rocket been unconscious for?  Seconds?  Hours?  Probably not long judging by the animal sounds, which meant his friends could still be fighting.  Well, some of them could be.  Drax and Quill had also been sucked through portals.  Where had they gone?  Somewhere on the same planet he currently occupied?  Or had they been flung to the far reaches?  He hoped Groot was okay, that he didn’t need to be planted again, and if he did, that he was with someone who would take good care of him.  Rocket refused to acknowledge the worst possibility.

            Groaning, he got to his feet.  He had no idea where he was, or what he should do in order to find his friends, but moving toward the water source he scented seemed like a good idea.  He found he was pretty thirsty, and had gotten fairly dirty during the fight.  He brought Groot’s tendrils with him, for they would make decent, albeit short rope if he found himself in need of tying anything up.  He told himself that this was the only reason why, that it had nothing to do with keeping a part of his friend close by.

            The water turned out to be a small river, the source of the liquid sound.  It was a sluggish thing, moving across a bed of smooth stones.  Rocket found a wide rock, half submerged, that he could sit on and easily reach the water.  After a quick scan of the area for danger, he bent his muzzle down to take a drink.

            Along with the cool, fresh taste, came that awful feeling of home and terror.  He quickly stood back up, looking all about him as his ears twisted this way and that.  But he only saw and heard the same things as before.  Was this some sort of psychic assault he was experiencing?  It didn’t feel anything like that, though, it was too persistent.  It was something to do with this place, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.  Had he been here before?

            Sitting back down on the rock, he continued to take in his surroundings, but nothing presented itself as overtly hostile.  Keeping his eyes up, he drank from the river again.  There was definitely something familiar about this place, the smell of the water trying to summon memories that just couldn’t quite get clear of a fog.

            As everything continued to leave him alone, Rocket set to work cleaning himself.  He didn’t take off his jumpsuit though.  He wasn’t comfortable exposing so much of himself in this place.  Still, he was sweaty beneath the fabric, so he slid down the rock to sit beneath the surface of the river, and let the water flow through.  The moment something bumped against him, he was back out on the rock, peering down into the water and holding his aero rig by a strap should he need to use it as a club.

            “A fish,” he chastised himself.  “Afraid of a fish.”

            As Rocket thought about what his next step should be, he let the sun dry him off.  One sun, yellow, in a blue sky.  Plants were green, rocks were grey.  Rocket could think of a few worlds he had visited that met those conditions.  Was this one of those?  He needed to find out, so how could he go about doing that?  The two methods that immediately jumped to mind were finding locals to ask, and waiting for nightfall in order to study the stars.  Of course, the stars might not tell him much depending on where he was.  Hell, the planet he was currently on might not even experience night, there could be another sun just waiting to rise.  Locals, while unappealing, were his best option.  Provided there were any with a high enough intelligence to communicate with.

            Rocket sighed.  His mind was running in circles.  He just didn’t have enough information to work with yet.  Movement was needed.

            Instead, he flopped back on the rock and took a couple of deep breaths.  He had to remind himself that he had been in a battle not all that long ago.  While the setting in which he found himself had all the elements of a peaceful place, his body was battered.  His muscles were sore, his joints ached, and his flesh was bruised.  That, and the unknown fate of his friends, might explain the dread that lay beneath all his thoughts.

            “Stop.  Thinking,” Rocket commanded himself.  He took another deep breath. And caught the scent of something on the air.

            Rolling over, Rocket pushed up onto his knees and sniffed in a few directions, tracking the source of the scent.  It was something sweet.  It was something that reminded Rocket of how empty his belly was.

            Following the river upstream for a short ways, Rocket soon deviated from its route and returned to the trees.  He didn’t have to travel far before locating the source of the smell.  A large patch of greenery was growing dozens of small blue orbs.  The delicious smell was coming from them.  Some deep memory told him that he didn’t need to be afraid, that the tiny fruit wasn’t poisonous.  Still, he plucked only one to start with and popped it into his mouth.  It was amazingly delicious.  Rocket spent some time in those bushes, gathering the little fruit and stuffing them into his mouth.

            “Ugh, so good,” he commented.  He turned as if to point out how to find which ones were the best, only to be reminded that he was completely alone.  It had been a long time since not even Groot lumbered nearby, and for just a second, Rocket had forgotten.  The crush of remembering his isolation was almost unbearable.  The blue things no longer tasted as good as they had.  Rocket gathered a few to put in his jumpsuit’s leg pouch in case he got hungry again later, but his enthusiasm for them had popped like a soap bubble.

            Rocket dragged his feet as he made his way back to the river.  It made sense to follow the water way, both for a constant source of hydration and because settlements were regularly built alongside such things.  It also provided him with a sense of direction, so that he couldn’t have to worry about walking circles.  Since he had moved upstream to reach the little fruits, he decided to continue in that direction as opposed to back tracking.

            Holding onto Groot’s tendrils, which he had slung over his shoulder, Rocket went to find someone to talk to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you like my writing? Want to read more AND support me? Then please consider checking out my non-fan fiction work by [clicking here.](http://kristalstittle.com/)  
> I also make [art.](https://www.redbubble.com/people/KristalStittle?asc=u)


	3. Chapter 3

            Whatever planet Rocket was on, it had a nightfall.  The world went dark when the sun disappeared beyond the horizon.  Only a single moon, not very large and partially blocked by the planet’s shadow, did a poor job of lighting up the woods.  Tired of walking, tired in general, Rocket climbed a tree with needles for leaves.  He had picked up the scent of several animals that disturbed him, so he thought being high up would help him feel safe enough to sleep.

            Sleep refused to come for a long time.  Rocket studied the stars, but couldn’t determine where in the galaxy he was.  What was worse, he didn’t see any ships.  A few times, a small point that appeared similar to a star drifted by, but there was a distinct satellite feel to the movement that provided little hope.  Plenty of planets uninhabited by life intelligent enough for space flight had the satellites of others circling them.  People were always curious about what others were up to, or what the weather was like should they feel like taking a camping vacation.

            Curled up in the crook of a bough, Rocket listened to the night noises and watched the sky through the high branches.  His eyes were slowly dragged downward by some blinking by the river.  Tiny lights appeared, drifted, and faded.  As Rocket looked for them, he spotted more within the trees.  One even came close.

            “You’re a bug,” Rocket realized.  The tiny blinking lights were insects, similar to the glowing seeds or whatever they were that Groot had once released.

            “Go away,” Rocket grumbled, suddenly upset.  He swatted away the nearest bug, but there were many more out of reach.  Refusing to see them anymore, he closed his eyes, reducing the world to scents and sounds.  It eventually caused him to fall asleep.

            Only once did Rocket wake up during the night.  Some animals got into a fight somewhere and kicked up a racket.

            “Hey!” Rocket yelled at whatever they were.  “Some of us are trying to sleep!”

            Leaves rustled and Rocket could just make out the sounds of nails on bark as the creatures ran away, startled.  But then he heard a much more concerning sound: the snuffling of something big.

            Looking down from his tree, Rocket spotted a large shadow moving around.  All his fur stood on end as he caught a whiff of the beast.  Just as he knew that the little blue orbs were safe to eat, he knew that whatever was below was dangerous.  Rocket stood as the animal did.  It’s huge, boxy muzzle was pointed up in his direction, as paws the size of his body rested against the tree.

            “This tree’s occupied!” Rocket shouted down at the animal, hoping that it couldn’t climb.

            The beast huffed, a low, curious growl rumbling out of it.

            “What do you want?”  Rocket settled as he realized that no, it couldn’t climb his tree.  “I’m not going to let you eat me.”

            But the animal persisted in hanging around down below.

            Rocket looked about, determining what tree he should jump to, when his hand touched his pouch.  If he liked the tiny blue fruits, would the creature below like them too?

            “You want some of these?” Rocket asked, taking a handful from the pouch.

            The big animal took a deep breath.  It was clear it had caught the scent of the fruit.

            “Fine.  Here.”  Rocket threw the handful, and then grabbed another and another, and threw them too.  “Damn moocher.”

            The beast turned to suck up the food Rocket had dropped for it.  It was strange to watch something so large eat something so small.

            “Enjoy, ’cause now I don’t have anymore.  You ate them all.”

            Rocket settled back down.  He kept an eye and an ear on the animal below until it wandered off, surprisingly silent for its size.  When he returned to sleep, it wasn’t nearly as deep as it had previously been.

            When Rocket next awoke, it was to the early morning sunlight.  He stretched and checked his internal clock, which was rubbish at keeping time while he slept.  Still, it seemed he had gotten a good amount of sleep.  The planet’s day-night cycle was so far proving to be something that could work with his circadian rhythm.

            Exiting his tree, he returned to the side of the river to drink and clean his teeth as best he could.

            “Hello there, fishy,” Rocket muttered as he spotted breakfast.

            The fish had other ideas, however.  Instead of a meal, Rocket ended up with a dunking of his own making.  He came up spluttering and cursing the fish, although he was more annoyed with himself.

            “Stupid beast,” Rocket remembered his visitor in the night.  “I wouldn’t have tried to catch that damn fish if it weren’t for you eating my fruits.”

            There was nothing similar to the little blue orbs that he could pick up the scent of, so he was forced to try fishing some more.  Annoyingly, the fish here weren’t so easily caught.  They were fast, always darting away before Rocket could close his claws around them.

            In his frustration, Rocket kicked at the flat stones that lined the bottom of the river.  He knocked a few away, revealing a small crustacean.  Without thinking, Rocket snatched it up before it could get away.

            “What the hell are you?” he wondered as he examined the many legs and tiny pinchers.  “You know what you are?  Breakfast.”

            His instincts hadn’t led him astray yet, so Rocket tossed the buggy looking critter into his mouth and chewed.

            “Not bad.  Crunchy.  Got any friends?”

            While the blue fruit was better, the crustaceans would serve well, provided he could find more.

            Continuing to follow the river, Rocket stuck to the shallow, turning over rocks with his feet and seeing what came out.  A few times he spotted amphibians, but left them alone.  No matter what his instincts said, he knew of far too many that were poisonous for him to take that chance.

            He saw a number of animals that day.  Small mammals scurried through the underbrush, making a remarkable amount of sound for their size.  Bigger animals tended to hear or smell him coming and often shied away, so he only caught glimpses.  Only one such animal, some sort of pack beast type creature with elaborate horns, watched him from across the water.  Rocket had tried to talk to it, only to get a flash of its ass as it bounded away.

            “Yeah, well, you too!”

            The birds weren’t so afraid, up in their trees.  There were many different kinds, from tiny little, colourful singers, to black, hunched over croakers.  There was even an exceptionally tall and ugly one that had been taking a drink up ahead, which walked away instead of flew when it saw Rocket.  Only once was Rocket forced to take cover in the trees for a few minutes.  A massive bird had decided to swoop down on him.

            “Raaaarrrr!” Rocket yelled and bore his teeth, startling the bird with its massive talons and hooked beak into peeling off.  It continued to circle through, so Rocket took shelter in the trees.  He had spotted the bird’s first dive run in time, but he couldn’t guarantee he’d spot the second.  When the big bird scooped up a big fish instead, he continued forward.

            “So he’s allowed to eat you and I’m not?” Rocket complained to the fish.

            His fright from the bird was soon forgotten when he came across a glass bottle in the river.

            “Ah ha!  Signs of intelligence!”  He soon came across some tin, and some plastic.  Garbage.  “Maybe not that intelligent,” Rocket grumbled at the waste of materials, and the destruction of the environment that this kind of behaviour caused.  The items that could be of use at some point he put his suit’s leg pouch, or stuck in an opening on his aero rig.  It seemed that the farther up the river he went, the more garbage there was scattered about.

            Night was coming again, and Rocket was beginning to wonder where all the litter came from, when he picked up a sound that was definitely not natural.  A combustion engine of decent size roared past somewhere up ahead.  Rocket moved more quickly along the waterway, no longer bothering to turn over rocks or pick up certain bits of trash.

            He finally slowed as he rounded a bend and saw a bridge of concrete crossing over it.  Another combustion engine vehicle drove over it, this one smaller than the other based on the sound.

            Finally, some form of civilization.

            Rocket rubbed his paws together and muttered, “Time to meet the natives.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you like my writing? Want to read more AND support me? Then please consider checking out my non-fan fiction work by [clicking here.](http://kristalstittle.com/)  
> I also make [art.](https://www.redbubble.com/people/KristalStittle?asc=u)


	4. Chapter 4

            As Rocket reached the bridge, he saw that it was for a road that carved its way through the trees.  While the main surface was some sort of mixture of crushed stone and tar, the edges were tightly packed dirt and gravel.  Rocket stuck to that verge as he walked, following the direction he had seen the four-wheeled vehicle going.

            As the sun began to set, he heard another engine approaching.  His plan was to get the pilot’s attention, and then ask them his questions.  But what Rocket planned and what actually occurred were two different things.

            As the engine neared, Rocket found his heart rate elevating.  While before, the strange sensations from this planet always came attached to a feeling of home, this time it was pure terror.  A primal part of his mind was screaming to get away from the road, to hide before the vehicle got there.  As a pair of bright lights shone through the trees, about to round the bend ahead, Rocket could barely breathe.  His instincts took over and he fled into the trees, scampering up the nearest of them.

            From the safety of the branches, Rocket watched the wheeled vehicle pass beneath him.  He had been around plenty like it before, so why had he reacted so adversely to this one?  For reasons he couldn’t explain, he had imagined himself getting crushed beneath the tires.  And there was something about seeing the lights through the trees as well, something unrelated to his vision of death, but also somehow more terrible.

            “Chicken,” Rocket grunted, chastising himself with a term he had picked up from Quill.  He was going to have to come up with a new plan, find someone who wasn’t piloting a land-based vehicle.

            With the sound of the engine fading away, Rocket climbed back down the tree and returned to the road.  He kept walking in the direction he had been, figuring it had to lead somewhere.

            It was nearly dark when a new sound finally reached his ears: a rhythmic creaking.  Focusing on it, he could hear tires whisking along the road, although small, not like the other vehicles.  There was no engine, but as the sound got closer, Rocket could make out the sounds of panting, a chain rattling, and a whiff of sweat reached him.  It was a similar smell to what Quill’s sweat produced, so perhaps it was someone of a similar species.

            The road had been carving its way up a hill.  Rocket couldn’t see what was coming toward him due to a steep rise on one side of the road.  On the other, a gentle slope would take him back into the trees if he needed to retreat.

            What came around the corner was someone who looked like a younger, skinny Quill, riding a two-wheeled cycle that he had to pump at peddles in order to move.  It was a simple enough contraption, but its rider was making fairly good speed on it.

            “Hi!” Rocket called out, raising a hand in greeting as the rider looked up at him.

            Rocket watched as first confusion and then shock crossed the boy’s features.  He suddenly lost control of the manual cycle, and went careening off the road.  He hit the slope, and then some bushes, where his cycle stopped, but he didn’t.  Rocket winced as the stranger got flicked over the handles and crashed into the brush.

            “Nice landing,” he commented as he walked over to look down on the scene of the accident.

            The boy forgot his injuries in order to stare, mouth agape, at Rocket.

            “What?” Rocket wondered.  “So I have something on my face?”  He wiped at his muzzle.

            “Holy shit!” the boy shouted.

            Rocket’s ears twisted back from the volume.

            “You can talk!” he continued.

            “Yeah, and I can hear, so you mind turning it down a little?” Rocket retorted.

            “You’re a raccoon.”

            “I am not a raccoon!” Rocket shouted reflexively.  “Wait, you know what a raccoon is?”

            The boy nodded.  “Are you a mutant?  Or one of those inhumans?”

            “What planet am I on?” Rocket was beginning to have a realization, and it wasn’t a good one.

            “Oh my god, you’re an alien?  You don’t look like those aliens that attacked New York though.  Or Thor.”

            “What’s a thor?  Anyway, just answer my damn question.”

            “Oh, Earth.  You’re on Earth.  Man, the guys are never going to believe this.”

            Rocket stopped listening as his heart plummeted into his gut.  Earth.  He was on Quill’s planet.  Quill had shared a lot of stories about this Earth, including the fact that when he left it, they had only travelled through space as far as their own moon, and that they had never encountered life beyond their own rock.  How the hell was he supposed to get out of here?

            A bright flash immediately put Rocket on the defensive.  The boy was holding out a flat device at him; the flash had come from it.

            “Give me that.”  Rocket dashed forward and snatched the device out of the kid’s hands.  “What did you just do?”  He worried about some sort of scan.

            “Sorry, dude, I was just taking your picture.  No one’s going to believe me.”

            Rocket went back to ignoring him as he fiddled with the device.  It was a fairly straight forward touch screen, although he couldn’t always tell what the little icons did based on their names.  Still, he found the photo that had just been taken of him and deleted it.

            “Can I have my phone back?” the kid asked, starting to grow concerned as Rocket fiddled with it.

            “What’s an Instagram?” Rocket asked instead.

            “A social site for looking at pictures.”

            “Pictures of what?”

            “Anything.  Ow.”  The kid finally started to get up and noticed all his minor cuts.

            “And Twitter?  What’s that?”  Rocket had been able to determine that a couple of the icons were for different types of messenging services.

            “Another social site, although it’s more text based.”

            “Why do you have a book of faces?  Is that for tracking criminals?”

            “What?  Oh, Facebook.  No, that’s another social site.”

            “Why do you have so many of those?  Is there a database on here somewhere?”

            “A database?  You mean like the internet?  If you’re looking for something, try Google.”  The kid got to his feet at last, and returned to his cycle.  He picked it up out of the bushes and pushed it up onto the road.

            “What is that?” Rocket asked, briefly pointing at the cycle while he investigated the thing called Google.

            “You mean my bike?”

            “This Google tells me you don’t have interplanetary space flight yet.”

            “No, we don’t.  Look, I think you’re cool, but I’d really like my phone back now.”

            The device buzzed in Rocket’s hands.  “What’s it doing?” he quickly handed it back.  “Is it going to explode?”

            “No, that’s just a message from my mom, wondering where I am.  I was supposed to be home by now.”

            Rocket just stood there as the boy tapped away on his phone for a bit and then pocketed it.

            “So if you’re an alien, how did you get here?  You’re not planning to attack are you?  Are there more of you in the woods?”

            “I don’t know, no, and definitely no,” Rocket replied.  He was currently feeling an overwhelming despair.  He was no longer lost, but he was marooned, trapped on a planet with people who hadn’t yet figured out how to leave it yet.

            “Are you okay?” the kid asked.  “You look…  I don’t know.”

            For a second Rocket thought about telling the boy the truth, but then thought better of it.  “I’m fine, I’m just tired of walking.”

            “I can give you a ride,” the boy offered, gesturing to a basket strapped to the back of his bike.

            The bike would most definitely not be capable of taking Rocket where he would like to go.  “And where would you give me a ride to?”

            The boy shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know where you’re going.  But I have to get home before my mom freaks at me.  She’s already pissed I wasn’t home for dinner.”

            “Take me to your house then, and I’ll continue from there.”

            “Yeah, sure!  Hop on!”

Rocket walked over to the bike, a little uncertain of it.

            “Are you sure I can’t take your picture?” the kid asked.

            “So you can share it on your insta whatever?  Yeah, I’m sure.  You don’t want to bring the wrong people down on your head.  Or mine.”

            “I’m Daniel, by the way,” said the boy, holding out his hand.

            “Rocket.”  He briefly shook hands with the human.

            “This is so cool,” Daniel said, swinging one leg over the bike, staring at the hand that had just touched Rocket’s.

            “The feeling isn’t mutual.”  Rocket hopped up into the basket.  It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was better than walking.

            Daniel got the bike moving, quickly accelerating to the speed in which he had first been moving.  While going the opposite direction that Rocket had been walking, it wasn’t going to take long to reach the bridge again.

            Curious about the bike, Rocket shifted around, looking down at the chain, wheels, and pedal mechanisms.  It was simple, but made a satisfying sound that Rocket liked, and the smell of machine grease was soothing.

            “Could you stay a little more still?” Daniel asked over his shoulder.  “You keep throwing off my balance a bit.”

            “Sorry.”  Rocket didn’t want to end up crashing like Daniel had earlier, so he settled as comfortably as he could.  “Are those levers near your hands the brakes?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Hydraulic?”

            “Not sure?  I don’t think so.  I’m pretty sure they’re wires.”

            That would make sense.  Hydraulics would probably spring a leak pretty quickly on a thing like this.

            “How long have you been riding things like this?” Rocket wondered.

            “Riding bikes?  I don’t know, since I was five?  I don’t remember.  I’ve pretty much always had a bike, it’s my only way of getting around.  Combine that with my paper route, and I’m basically on this thing every day.”

            “What’s a paper route?”

            “I deliver newspapers to people’s houses.”

            Rocket didn’t bother to ask what a newspaper was.

            “What about you?” Daniel asked.  “Where are you from?  How did you get here?  I have so many questions.  What’s your planet like?”

            “I don’t have a planet.”

            “Is your species nomadic?”

            “I don’t have a species.  There’s just me.”  _There’s just me_ , those words ran in Rocket’s head.  Where were the others?

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Sorry?  For what?”

            “That you’re the only one of your kind.”

            “Yeah, well, I have friends.”

            “Where are they?  Are they aliens too?  What are they like?”

            “You ask way too many questions,” Rocket snapped.

            Daniel didn’t say anything, but he hunched farther over the handles.  Rocket knew he should apologize, but he wasn’t sure how.  Not without mentioning things he didn’t want to talk about.

            When they reached the bridge, Rocket watched the river go by.  He wondered if he’d ever return to it at some point.  He hoped he didn’t.

            “Hey, so you mentioned being attacked by aliens, or whatever.  What’s that about?” Rocket decided to ask.  It could produce some useful information and maybe make the kid perk up a little.

            “We call it The Incident.”

            “All right, so tell me about this Incident.”

            “They came through a portal that opened over New York.”

            “Who’s they?”

            “The news said they’re called the Chitauri, although I don’t know who told them that.”

            “Chitauri, huh?  I’ve never heard of them.”

            “No?”

            “Galaxy’s a big place.  Can’t meet every douchbag in it.”

            “Well, the Avengers saved us.  They’re this awesome team of superheroes.”

            “Superheroes.”

            “Yeah.  There’s even more of them then there were when The Incident happened.  Although some are missing.  No one knows where Captain America has been lately.”

            “Wait, Captain America, I think I’ve actually heard that name before.”

            “You have?  Is he in space?”  The bike wobbled as Daniel tried to look at Rocket over his shoulder.

            “Eyes on the road, genius.”  Rocket gripped the sides of the basket, ready to bail should the kid lose control.  “My friend Quill mentioned him a bunch of times.  Says he was in something called a comic.”

            “Yeah, Cap’s been around since World War II.  Your friend knows Earth stuff?”

            “He’s half Terran.”

            ‘Terran?  Is that our alien name?”

            “Sure, I guess.”

            “Cool.”

            “Tell me more about these heroes.”

            “Okay, well have you heard of Asgarde?”

            “Maybe, but I can’t say I really recall anything about it.”

            “I think it’s in space.  Some people think it’s somewhere else, like heaven.  Anyway, Thor’s from there.  I guess he visited Earth a super long time ago or something, ’cause the Vikings wrote legends about him.  He was their God of thunder.”

            “What are Vikings?  Some sort of royalty?”

            “Oh, they’re these people that lived a long time ago somewhere else on Earth.”

            “Any of your heroes not old bastards?”

            “Well, I don’t think the Hulk is old, but it’s hard to tell.  People don’t know much about him, just that he’s big, green, and kicks a lot of ass.  He fought off a different monster in New York once, before The Incident, although that one wasn’t an alien.”

            “I know someone green, and while she may not be big, she will certainly kick your ass.”

            “So there are green aliens?  Awesome.  Before the Chitauri, people used to think that aliens were either green or grey.”

            “I know a grey one too.  They come in every colour you can think of.  So is that it?  Just three heroes?”

            “Not even close.  My favourite…  Oh hold on, we’ve reached my house.”  The enthusiasm with which Daniel had been talking suddenly drained from his voice.  “Do you want to get off here?” he asked, slowing to a stop at the head of where some dirt ruts met the road.  At the end of the ruts, a house with lights on glowed in the early darkness of night.

            “Do you got any food?  I wouldn’t mind hearing more about these heroes,” Rocket told him.

            “Yeah, I can make you something.”  The energy that Rocket expected to hear didn’t return to Daniel’s voice.

            “What’s the matter?  There a Granx in your house or something?”

            “Or something.”  Daniel turned the bike and peddled them up the ruts.


	5. Chapter 5

            “You have to wait outside,” Daniel told Rocket, stopping his bike beside the house, just past a combustion engine land vehicle which sat at the end of the dirt ruts.

            “Why?”

            “’Cause my mom can’t see you.”

            “You were going to post a picture of me on your social thing, but your mom can’t see me?”

            “It’s complicated.  Just wait out here, okay?  I’ll come get you when the coast is clear.”

            “Yeah, fine.”  It’s not like he had anywhere else to go.

            Rocket watched from around the corner as Daniel walked toward the door.  A metal outer door that was mostly screen squalled loudly as Daniel opened it.  As he opened the more secure wooden door beyond it, Rocket’s ears flattened from the high pitched voice which started shouting at Daniel before he even passed through the opening.  It wasn’t long before Daniel was shouting back.

            With his sensitive ears, Rocket was able to make out part of the argument, even after the doors had been closed.  It seemed Daniel’s mom was very upset that he had stayed out as late as he had.  He was supposed to have been home much sooner, and she had worried, but was also very angry, for this wasn’t the first time he had been out late.  Daniel argued that he had been at a friend’s house, that he deserved a social life.  It was a strange domestic argument that Rocket didn’t understand, for he had never been on either side of something like that before.  He knew nothing about the dynamics between parents and children.

            A female terran stormed out of the house, so Rocket ducked completely back behind the corner of the building.  She got into the land vehicle and slammed its door.  Rocket risked poking his nose out.  From his place in the shadows, he could see the woman sitting behind the controls.  She was crying, but trying not to.  It was fascinating to watch her rein in her emotions.  Her face eventually fell into a blank neutral, and after wiping her eyes with some sort of cloth and touching up her makeup, she started up the vehicle.  When the headlights came to life, Rocket scurried backward into complete hiding.  He didn’t come out again until the sound of the engine reached the road and started heading away down it.

            Several seconds went by before the door to the house opened again.

            “Rocket?” Daniel called out, his voice breaking just a touch.  He cleared his throat.  “You still out here?”

            Rocket came out from around the corner.

            “Want to come inside and get something to eat?”

            “Your relationship with your mom always like that?” Rocket wondered.

            “Can we not talk about my mom?” Daniel held the door open for Rocket.

            Rocket shrugged. “No skin off my back.”

            “What do you want to eat?  We have a bunch of leftovers in the fridge.”

            Rocket walked up to the table, sniffing at the plate sitting on it.  “What’s this? Smells good.”

            “You can have it.  I’ve never like Mom’s meatloaf, especially when it’s gone cold.”

            While Daniel got something for himself out of the fridge, Rocket climbed up onto the chair nearest the plate.  He sniffed the meat and plant matter more thoroughly.  There was nothing off putting, so he started eating.

            “You don’t use utensils?” Daniel asked, scooping a cheese and pasta glop out of a plastic container and onto a plate.

            “What for?”  Rocket always preferred eating with his hands.  Why bother with forks and things?  Hands were easier.  “When’s your mom coming back?”

            “Early morning.  She works a night shift for some security company.  You don’t need to worry about her coming back and finding you here.  Do you always eat so fast?”

            “Do you always eat so slow?”

            Daniel had nothing to say in response.

            Rocket sighed. “Look, kid, I don’t mean to come off as so…”

            “Mean?”

            “Sure.  I’ve just had a couple of really bad days.”

            “What exactly happened?”

            “Best guess?  I got sucked through a worm hole and ended up here.  I have no idea where my friends might have gone.”

            “A worm hole?  Is that like what happened in London?”

            “How would I know what happened in London?”

            Daniel took out his phone and tapped away on it.  He then turned it around to reveal a video he had started.  Rocket took the phone in order to watch while Daniel ate his dinner.

            “This is some crazy shit,” Rocket commented.  The video was captured through the window of a building a few stories up.  It jerked around a lot, the person holding the recording device obviously scared, but it showed a massive ship and a battle involving some man in a red cape and some alien Rocket didn’t recognize.  Objects kept periodically disappearing and then reappearing elsewhere.  When the video ended, Rocket was presented with the option to watch others from the same attack, so he clicked on one.

            “Who are these weirdos?” Rocket asked of the aliens, turning the phone briefly toward the Daniel.  “They still around?”

            “No, they’re gone.  I don’t know what they’re called, everyone just calls them the London aliens.”

            “And the big guy with the hammer?”

            “That’s Thor.”

            “What happened to the ship and all the alien tech?”

            “Same thing that happened to the stuff from The Incident, I guess.  Some government agency probably took it all.  SHIELD I would guess.”

            “And this SHIELD, where are they?”

            “I don’t know if they exist anymore.  They were infiltrated by Hydra and disappeared for awhile, but then they came back with a whole bunch of inhuman things, but that didn’t go so great.  There are rumours on the internet that they might still be around, but no one seems to really know.”

            Rocket frowned.  Looked like that route was a no go.

            He was eventually presented with the option to watch a video from the New York Incident that Daniel kept mentioning, so he watched that too.

            “What the hell is that green thing?”

            “That’s the Hulk.”

            “What an accurate name.  Wait a minute…  How do I stop this?  I need to go back…  Wait, there, I got it.  This guy.  Tell me who this guy is.”  Rocket turned the phone around again.

            “That’s Iron Man.”

            “Iron Man, huh?  Don’t look like iron to me.”

            “It’s just a name the news networks gave him.  Everyone knows he’s really Tony Stark.”

            “Where can I find this Tony Stark?”

            Danial shrugged.  “New York most likely.  That’s where Stark Tower is, and people have spotted him flying around there a bunch of times.”

            Rocket stared at the boosters that were making the man in the metal suit fly.  “So how do I get to New York?”


	6. Chapter 6

            After dinner, Daniel brought Rocket to his bedroom.  He had a cheap computer in there, but it was better than looking at the tiny phone screen, and the physical keyboard was easier to use.

            “That’s where New York is,” Daniel explained, pointing on a map he had brought up.  “Over here is where we are in BC.”

            Rocket looked at the scale provided at the bottom of the map.  “I guess walking is out.”

            “Yeah.  And you want to go to New York City, New York, which is pretty much the farthest place in that state from here.  You also have to cross the border into the States.”

            “You’re losing me with all this states crap.”

            “Okay, so we’re in Canada, this country here.  It’s made up of provinces, and we’re in the one called British Columbia over here in the west,” Daniel explained.  “This country below ours, is called the United States of America, which is usually shortened to the States, the US, USA, or to America.”

            “That’s too many names for one place.”

            “It’s made up states, which are like provinces.  This one is New York in the east, while over here by us is California.  If I zoom in, the names will appear.”

            “Okay, but what does all that mean to me?”

            “I guess not much.  Except for the border between the countries, which is this line here.  It’s guarded.”

            “How guarded?”

            “You need a passport at the crossing points.  A passport is-”

            “I know what a passport is,” Rocket interrupted.  “Can you or your mom or someone smuggle me across?”

            “I don’t think so.  They have dogs that would probably smell you.”

            “I don’t like dogs.  What do they have at the non-crossing points?  A fence, a wall, automated turrets?”

            Daniel shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Our border is very friendly.  There might just be guards patrolling it.”

            “Then I won’t have a problem.  Do you have photos of the area between here and New York so I can get an idea of what I’m getting into?  Terrain maps or something?”

            “Here.  There’s satellite setting.”  Daniel pushed a button and the flat colours turned into a mix of browns and greens.  “Zoom in with this button to get a better look.  There’s also street view in most places.”

            Rocket fiddled around with the map.  It wasn’t great, but at least it was something.  As he scrolled about he read the names of places that zipped by.  When the map got stuck for a moment, Rocket thought it was a problem with the input device, and so kept trying to get it to move.  When the map unfroze, it shot away from the route Rocket had been considering to end up in another area of the place Daniel called the states.  He was about to search his way back north, when a word caught his eye.

            “Hey, kid, how would you pronounce this?”

            Daniel looked over his shoulder.  “Missouri.”

            Rocket’s ears twitched.  He had heard of that place before.  Quill had mentioned it.  In fact, he had mentioned America a number of times, now that he thought about it.  Why had Missouri come up?  Rocket scoured his brain until the answer was dredged up: Quill had been born there.

            A crash from outside the house derailed any follow up.

            “What was that?” Rocket worried about the beast he had seen below the tree in the night.

            “The trash cans must have been left out again, so raccoons got at them,” Daniel sighed.  “I gotta go scare them off.”  He got up and headed toward the bedroom door.

            “Wait,” Rocket slid off the chair.  “Let me go outside…  I’ve never seen a raccoon before.”  He wanted to know what the humans were always comparing him to.

            “Yeah, sure,” Daniel said, surprised.

            Rocket backtracked his way through the house to the front door.

            “The trash cans are next to the garage.  Do you need me to turn on the light?” Daniel asked.

            “Not if it might scare them off.”

            Rocket stepped outside into the darkness.  There was a chittering sound coming from next to the garage that twanged in Rocket’s mind.  It was a familiar sound in the same way that this place had a familiar smell.  Daniel stayed in the doorway as Rocket made his way over to the trash cans.  When he turned the corner, his heart dropped into his stomach.

            The raccoons looked up at Rocket, startled by his sudden appearance.  There was a mother with three babies, rooting around in the trash that they had knocked over, looking for food.  And then they ran, scared off by this new presence they didn’t understand.  Their nails scratched against the bark as they scrambled up the nearest tree.  The same sound Rocket’s made.

            Rocket knew then that it was true: he was a raccoon.  Or at least, he had been.  Feeling light headed, he sat heavily on the ground.  It explained why everything was so familiar.  He had been born here, maybe even in these woods.  Those raccoons could be related to him.  And the terror.  Especially of the light between the trees…  He had been taken by someone.  A ship had come and stolen him from his home, and butchered his brain and body until he had become what he was.

            He was home.


	7. Chapter 7

            “Are you okay?” Daniel asked.  He had walked over when Rocket failed to return.

“I’m a raccoon,” Rocket muttered.

“I know raccoons. And trust me, you aren’t one.”  Daniel was trying to cheer him up, even though Rocket hadn’t been all that nice to him.

            “Well, I was once.”  Rocket got up onto his feet.  “Is it any easier to get to Missouri than to New York?”

            “Probably not.  Why do you want to go to Missouri?”

            “Because I think my friend Quill might be there.”  If Rocket had been transported to the place where he had been born, it stood to reason that maybe Quill had been too.  He didn’t want to think about what it might be like for Gamora or Drax to suddenly be back on whatever might be left of their worlds.  Would Groot know what happened?  Would he be okay?

            “What’s your friend doing in Missouri?”

            “I don’t know that he’s even there, but he might be, so I have to look.”

            “Missouri’s not exactly small.  Do you know what part he might be in?”

            Rocket thought for a moment, but no, he couldn’t remember Quill narrowing it down anymore than that.  He tended to stop listening when Quill started talking about Earth.  “No,” he said in response to Daniel’s question.

            “Okay.  I’m sorry I can’t help you more.”

            What a concept: apologizing for not being able to do more, for free, for the rude stranger who had come out of nowhere.

            “Yeah, well, thanks for what you _have_ done,” Rocket muttered.

            “Well if you want to go to Missouri now, that kind of ruins the plan I had thought up.”

            “What plan?”

            “You wanted to go to New York to see Tony Stark, right?  I was just thinking, what if we brought Tony Stark here?”

            “How?”

            “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.  I figured if we could find a way to send him a message, he would _want_ to come here in order to meet _you_.”

            “ _Can_ you send him a message?”

            “I doubt it.  Not one he’d be likely to see, anyway.”

            Rocket sighed.  If he could get that Stark guy on his side, then he might be able to take Rocket to Missouri.  A man with a flying suit of armour sounded infinitely more helpful than a kid with a bicycle.

            “Let’s go back inside,” Daniel suggested.

            “Your trash is still knocked over,” Rocket pointed out.

            “Oh yeah.”

            Rocket helped Daniel bring the garbage cans into what turned out to be his garage.  He hoped to see something of interest in there, but everything just looked like half-broken junk.  Even the tools he spotted were basic, some of them even rusting.  No, there was nothing to help him in there, so he followed Daniel back out and then into the house.

            “So you said you could send Tony Stark a message, you just don’t think he’d see it?”

            “Probably.  I mean, he’s got a Twitter account, although I don’t know how much of it’s really him and how much is just a PR person.”

            “That’s that bird thing on your phone, right?  One of them social things?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Can other people see the messages you send him?”

            Daniel shrugged.  “Depends on how I send it.  If his Twitter DMs are open to everyone, I could send him one of those.  But again, that’s probably a PR person, and it would be instantly buried under a heap of other people sending messages.”

            “Okay, show me these social things.  Teach me how they work, walk me through them.”

            So Daniel had Rocket sit back down in front of his computer.  Rocket listened closely as he learned how the major sites functioned.  There were more than he thought there should be, and some worked better on the phone than the computer and vice versa.  He had Daniel show him how posting worked, which embarrassed the kid a little, because he didn’t know what to post about.  Mostly, he studied the pages belonging to Tony Stark and the various ways he might be able to contact the man through them.

            “So I should ignore the ones without the blue checkmark thing?” Rocket asked for confirmation.

            “Yeah, the others are fakes, pretending to be people for attention.”

            “Your species is weird.”

            Daniel shrugged.  “You get used to it.”

            His nonchalant response actually made Rocket laugh, which in turn made Daniel smile.

            “How do I set up one of these accounts for myself?” Rocket eventually asked.

            “You want a Twitter account?”  That was the social site they had looked at the most often, because it was apparently Daniel’s favourite.

            “Yeah, I want Quill to be able to find me if he ends up looking at all this crap.”

            “Okay, we’re going to have to make you an email address first.”

            This was surprisingly easy to do.  There were zero identity checks, and soon enough, Rocket had an email account.  They used that to create the Twitter account.  Rocket then fiddled around, finding and following accounts related to human space travel, just in case one of them solved his problem before he did.  Having seen the ridiculous things humans wrote as their mini biographies, and how several pretended to be things they weren’t, Rocket wrote his honestly.

            “Here, you can take a picture of me now,” Rocket told Daniel, shoving the phone into his hands.

            “Really?”

            “I need an icon picture that Quill can recognize.  You are not allowed to post it anywhere else though, understand?”

            “Sure.  But can I keep it on my phone anyway?”

            “Why not.”

            Rocket sat still for a couple of photos, picking the one he liked best to use as his display photo.  He then deleted the rest off of Daniel’s phone, only letting him keep the one.

            “Why do I already have a follower?” Rocket wondered as one popped up in his notifications.

            “That’s a spam bot, you can ignore it.  You’ll often get them in batches, I find, especially the porn bots.”

            “ _Porn_ bots?  There’s porn on this thing?”

            “There’s everything on the internet.  Don’t click those links though, a bunch of them are viruses.”

            “How evil.  Hey, this is you.”  Another follow notification had appeared on the computer.

            “Yeah, I thought you should have at least one real follower.”

            “I don’t plan on tweeting anything.”

            Daniel shrugged.  Rocket followed him back, mostly to make himself look less like one of those bot things.  He ended up tweeting not long later, just a quick post telling Quill that if he came across it, to send him a message.

            “What are you doing tomorrow?” Rocket asked when Daniel yawned.

            “Well, it’s Saturday, so I don’t have school.  I have to deliver the paper though.”

            “How long does that take?”

            “I don’t know.  Depends on how fast I am.”

            “Then go to bed.  I may need your help tomorrow and don’t want you to be busy with this paper crap.”

            “What about you?  Where will you sleep?”

            “I’ll find a spot, don’t worry about it.  Can you sleep if I keep using your computer?”

            “Probably not.”

            “Let me borrow your phone then.”

            “But I’ll need to charge it.”

            “Then give me the charger as well.”

            Daniel handed over the charge cable.  “Be careful with it, okay?  You’re not planning on stealing it or anything, are you?”

            “No.  I’ll be here when you wake up.”

            “My mom can’t see you.”

            “I know that.  Don’t worry about it, I’m good at hiding.  She’ll never know that I’m here.”

            “Okay.”

            Rocket followed Daniel around the house while the kid got ready for bed.  He didn’t know why he did that.  Not until the lights were off and Rocket was sitting alone on the couch in the living room.  He didn’t like being alone.  At least he had a task to distract himself with: how to get the attention of a billionaire scientist, who liked to fly around in a suit of armour.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you like my writing? Want to read more AND support me? Then please consider checking out my non-fan fiction work by [clicking here.](http://kristalstittle.com/)  
> I also make [art.](https://www.redbubble.com/people/KristalStittle?asc=u)


End file.
